Hey Everyone!
So, It's been a LONG time since I posted anything. With finals and graduation and all of that, it's been crazy! So, everything on that previous To Do list is completed, as well as graduating and moving back home :-)
Sneakers: Jen and I went to the Princeton Running Store. I HIGHLY reccomend this place. The guy helping us watched how we walked, made 2 reccomendations to each of us, then guessed our shoe sizes without even measuring our feet (guessed correctly, mind you). After being at the store for about 45 minutes and making sure we were making the right choice, we finally bought our shoes!! While it was a little expensive, I have no regrets there... I've worn them a few times and they are SO comfortable.
Verizon situation is all figured out. I am using an old Blackberry my Dad had and got an international plan. It is under a different number though so that people wont be texting me and costing me money!!! Emails are free though, and so is the blackberry messenger, so feel free to contact me that way! My Dad and brother both have blackberrys so I will be able to message with them at any time. Rates for phone calls differ depending on the countries. I put my email address into my mom's phone so that I won't miss out on pictures that she would normally text to me :-) I set up this blog so that I can either log on to make posts or email my posts in (as you can see with the previous post!).
Spain and France are all booked thanks to Pat. I was off doing senior week stuff so he was awesome and took care of the bookings. In Barcelona, we will be staying at Alberg Barcelona Pere Tarres for 2 nights. We will be in Madrid for one night at Musas Residence. We then head to Paris and will be staying at the Regent Hostel for three nights. We don't have Switzerland completely figured out, but we will most definately be staying in the The Lazy Falken Backpacker while in Interlaken.
Our original plan was to take a plane from Switzerland down to Naples then work our way back up through Italy, but when Pat looked into the flights, he said that it wont work since there are apparently no planes that go that route. We need to figure out if we're changing the order of Italy or if we just want to take the long train ride.
In the next 24 hours I hope to accomplish a lot. In addition to celebrating Michelle's Birthday (Happy Birthday Michelle!!!!!), I need to finish booking Switzerland, book Italy, Pack, and call the bank/credit card company to tell them I'll be using the cards in Europe.
You may be saying: "Pack? Why now?"
Well, if you say that, I will respond with the following, "BECAUSE I LEAVE IN FOUR DAYS!!!! YAYYYY!!!"
I'll update again when I finish all that! I hope you're having a great day whenever you read this!!
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
ONE MONTH LEFT!
So, one month from today (or yesterday, at this point), we will be on our way to Europe!!!! It's so exciting, but a little scary at the same time... this means that in less than a month I will be done with classes, done with finals, graduated, moved out of my house, and on my way to the most amazing trip I'll ever take. Wow.
My previous To Do list is completed! Yay!! England will go down as follows:
We leave Scottland (by train, probably) and head to Liverpool. There we will stay at Everton Hostel. We'll be doing all the cool Beatles stops there (as recommended by Ray!). From there we will head to Oxford and stay at Oxford Backpackers Hostel. Next stop is London for two nights. The first night we're staying at Picadilly Backpackers Hostel. Unfortunately it wasn't available for two nights, but we found another hostel that seemed pretty cool for Friday the 4th: No. 8 Hostel London. On the morning of the 5h we will be getting on a plane to Spain.
While in Spain, we will stay away from the plain, for that is mainly where the rain stays. (By George, I think I've got it!)
Accommodations in London are EXPENSIVE! 1 British Pound = about 1.5 US Dollars at this point, which doesn't help matters. Let's hope the US Dollar improves a bit over the next month :-) Also, it's a little discouraging that hostels are still so busy on the weekend.
My new International Student ID card is GREAT!!! I got that on Thursday. Not only do I get all sorts of discounts at various places all over the world, but I now have great medical/travel insurance for the next year! All for $22... it's incredible!!
I know the blog posts are kind of bland so far, but on May 24th they'll get very exciting :-) Thanks for still reading, though!! 'Til then, I'm sticking with my To Do lists and updates about those...
To Do: Book Spain, book France, buy good sneakers, and figure out the Verizon situation.
I'll update again when I finish this To Do list!!!
My previous To Do list is completed! Yay!! England will go down as follows:
We leave Scottland (by train, probably) and head to Liverpool. There we will stay at Everton Hostel. We'll be doing all the cool Beatles stops there (as recommended by Ray!). From there we will head to Oxford and stay at Oxford Backpackers Hostel. Next stop is London for two nights. The first night we're staying at Picadilly Backpackers Hostel. Unfortunately it wasn't available for two nights, but we found another hostel that seemed pretty cool for Friday the 4th: No. 8 Hostel London. On the morning of the 5h we will be getting on a plane to Spain.
While in Spain, we will stay away from the plain, for that is mainly where the rain stays. (By George, I think I've got it!)
Accommodations in London are EXPENSIVE! 1 British Pound = about 1.5 US Dollars at this point, which doesn't help matters. Let's hope the US Dollar improves a bit over the next month :-) Also, it's a little discouraging that hostels are still so busy on the weekend.
My new International Student ID card is GREAT!!! I got that on Thursday. Not only do I get all sorts of discounts at various places all over the world, but I now have great medical/travel insurance for the next year! All for $22... it's incredible!!
I know the blog posts are kind of bland so far, but on May 24th they'll get very exciting :-) Thanks for still reading, though!! 'Til then, I'm sticking with my To Do lists and updates about those...
To Do: Book Spain, book France, buy good sneakers, and figure out the Verizon situation.
I'll update again when I finish this To Do list!!!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
trains and hostels and money... oh my!
First off, 36 days from now, I will be on a plane to Dublin. AWESOME.
So, I booked my Eurail Pass yesterday!!! I am now $759 poorer than I was. Eek. It's the "Global" one month pass, which means I can go to the 21 countries included in the pass as many as I want within one month. It was the best choice for our trip.
I started booking our hostels today. May 24th we'll be on a plane all night, but May 25th we're staying at Barnacles Temple Bar House in Dublin, May 26th we'll be at the Sugan Hostel Killarney, May 27th we'll maybe be staying with Pat's cousins, but if not we'll probably book a hostel in Cork, and May 28th (Pat's Birthday! National Pat Day will turn INTERNATIONAL!) we will be at the Belfast International Youth Hostel!
Booking through hostelworld.com is the way to go. That way you (or in this case, I) dont have to put all the money up beforehand like you may have to through other websites: you only have to put 10% down... which is wonderful.
When I went to book our hostels for Scotland, the ones we wanted were booked. We will be there on a weekend, so I guess hostels are more busy on the weekends. This is a little discouraging, but it just means we'll definately have to book hostels asap!
It's fun paying for all this stuff online. I'm su used to ordering something and if it even asks for my country, USA is listed at the top. I actually have to scroll to find it now!!
Next up on the To Do list: book Scotland hostels, figure out England and book hostels there, get my international student ID card thingy, and figure out the health insurance for while im gone.
I like blogging! Yay!
So, I booked my Eurail Pass yesterday!!! I am now $759 poorer than I was. Eek. It's the "Global" one month pass, which means I can go to the 21 countries included in the pass as many as I want within one month. It was the best choice for our trip.
I started booking our hostels today. May 24th we'll be on a plane all night, but May 25th we're staying at Barnacles Temple Bar House in Dublin, May 26th we'll be at the Sugan Hostel Killarney, May 27th we'll maybe be staying with Pat's cousins, but if not we'll probably book a hostel in Cork, and May 28th (Pat's Birthday! National Pat Day will turn INTERNATIONAL!) we will be at the Belfast International Youth Hostel!
Booking through hostelworld.com is the way to go. That way you (or in this case, I) dont have to put all the money up beforehand like you may have to through other websites: you only have to put 10% down... which is wonderful.
When I went to book our hostels for Scotland, the ones we wanted were booked. We will be there on a weekend, so I guess hostels are more busy on the weekends. This is a little discouraging, but it just means we'll definately have to book hostels asap!
It's fun paying for all this stuff online. I'm su used to ordering something and if it even asks for my country, USA is listed at the top. I actually have to scroll to find it now!!
Next up on the To Do list: book Scotland hostels, figure out England and book hostels there, get my international student ID card thingy, and figure out the health insurance for while im gone.
I like blogging! Yay!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Planning!
Hey Everyone!
So this is officially my Europe Blog!! All four of us (Me, Pat, Jen, and Dave) will be keeping a blog while we are spending 5 1/2 amazing weeks backpacking through Europe!! The best part about this is that we can update the blogs through email and even through text message! I set up a flikr account so that I can send in some pictures so you can see all the cool things I'm doing, too! I've linked everyone else's blog to this page, so be sure to read up on what they're writing, too!
Today, the four of us met up to plan our trip more specifically! We have an outline and picked our hostels for the first two countries we'll be in. The hostel's look really nice (much better than the dorm rooms I've heard them described as), so I'm psyched! Our general outline for our trip is as follows (taken directly from Pat's blog):
"We depart from Newark Int. Airport at 5:00 PM {On May 24th} and land the next morning at 8:30 AM in Dublin Airport, Ireland. From there we hope to explore Dublin, Cork (to visit {Pat's} relatives!), Blarney Castle and up to Giants Causeway to name a few plans. Then we aim to take a ferry over to Scotland and see the sights of Edinburgh and Glasgow before heading down the UK to England. After exploring England we will be hopping on a plane to Spain where we will see the sights Barcelona and Madrid have to offer and then hop a train to Paris, France. After a few days in France we will get on a train once again into Switzerland where we will have an exciting day in Interlaken at the foot of the Swiss Alps, as well as seeing Zurich and the capital Burn. From there we will travel all the way down to Naples, and over the course of the next 5 days work our way up Italy hitting Rome, Florence, and Venice. From Venice we will grab an overnight train into Vienna, Austria where we will only spend a day adventuring before getting back onto the train for the 4 hour ride into the heart of the Czech Republic: Prague. After our time in Prague we will be heading into Germany for days of exploring the countryside, touring the Rhine River, and seeing the cities like Berlin. After departing Germany, we will be making our way to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. During our final 3 days of the trip in Amsterdam, we will hopefully take the hour and a half train ride for a day in Belgium just next door, before returning to catch our flight out of the Amsterdam International Airport just to land for a wonderful 11 hour layover in Reykjavik, Iceland. After spending our bonus night in Iceland we will finally come to the end of our adventure and leave for home, landing at 12:30 PM in JFK on July 1st."
Like I said, today we planned out more specifics about Ireland and Scotland. We also took another trip to Eastern Mountain Sports, where I got this really cool skort (yes, a skort... I feel like I'm a catholic school girl again) that wont get wrinkly and I can move around in like they're shorts but they look really nice!! I already have the basics (plane tickets, a backpack, towel that folds up so super tiny, and much much more). The next big thing I need to get are good shoes and my Eurail pass.
I'm so excited to be going on this trip and I hope that with the convenience of this set up, I'll be able to blog on a regular basis (I'll also have a journal though, so everything will be documented no matter what!).
I really hope you enjoy reading this as much as I'll enjoy writing it!
Lots of Love!!!
So this is officially my Europe Blog!! All four of us (Me, Pat, Jen, and Dave) will be keeping a blog while we are spending 5 1/2 amazing weeks backpacking through Europe!! The best part about this is that we can update the blogs through email and even through text message! I set up a flikr account so that I can send in some pictures so you can see all the cool things I'm doing, too! I've linked everyone else's blog to this page, so be sure to read up on what they're writing, too!
Today, the four of us met up to plan our trip more specifically! We have an outline and picked our hostels for the first two countries we'll be in. The hostel's look really nice (much better than the dorm rooms I've heard them described as), so I'm psyched! Our general outline for our trip is as follows (taken directly from Pat's blog):
"We depart from Newark Int. Airport at 5:00 PM {On May 24th} and land the next morning at 8:30 AM in Dublin Airport, Ireland. From there we hope to explore Dublin, Cork (to visit {Pat's} relatives!), Blarney Castle and up to Giants Causeway to name a few plans. Then we aim to take a ferry over to Scotland and see the sights of Edinburgh and Glasgow before heading down the UK to England. After exploring England we will be hopping on a plane to Spain where we will see the sights Barcelona and Madrid have to offer and then hop a train to Paris, France. After a few days in France we will get on a train once again into Switzerland where we will have an exciting day in Interlaken at the foot of the Swiss Alps, as well as seeing Zurich and the capital Burn. From there we will travel all the way down to Naples, and over the course of the next 5 days work our way up Italy hitting Rome, Florence, and Venice. From Venice we will grab an overnight train into Vienna, Austria where we will only spend a day adventuring before getting back onto the train for the 4 hour ride into the heart of the Czech Republic: Prague. After our time in Prague we will be heading into Germany for days of exploring the countryside, touring the Rhine River, and seeing the cities like Berlin. After departing Germany, we will be making our way to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. During our final 3 days of the trip in Amsterdam, we will hopefully take the hour and a half train ride for a day in Belgium just next door, before returning to catch our flight out of the Amsterdam International Airport just to land for a wonderful 11 hour layover in Reykjavik, Iceland. After spending our bonus night in Iceland we will finally come to the end of our adventure and leave for home, landing at 12:30 PM in JFK on July 1st."
Like I said, today we planned out more specifics about Ireland and Scotland. We also took another trip to Eastern Mountain Sports, where I got this really cool skort (yes, a skort... I feel like I'm a catholic school girl again) that wont get wrinkly and I can move around in like they're shorts but they look really nice!! I already have the basics (plane tickets, a backpack, towel that folds up so super tiny, and much much more). The next big thing I need to get are good shoes and my Eurail pass.
I'm so excited to be going on this trip and I hope that with the convenience of this set up, I'll be able to blog on a regular basis (I'll also have a journal though, so everything will be documented no matter what!).
I really hope you enjoy reading this as much as I'll enjoy writing it!
Lots of Love!!!
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